dec14

I've written about this before but I'm once again feeling torn between two competing directions. One that calls for working hard to actively pursue and fulfill my potential to the benefit and enjoyment of myself and those around me, while the other just doesn't give a shit about any of this and wants to kick back and chill and let what happens happens.

In this moment, I'm really feeling like the second route is the way to go. Maybe because I'm burnt out...hmm...yeah, probably that. But I do think there's something to it. Just letting go of the chase and relaxing into myself and life exactly as I am/it is, burnt out or not.

The first one might sound better, but I suspect it's more of an ego projection. When I think of it there's a flash of certain idyllic images in my mind, and obviously some part of the mind believes that that would be better and more fulfilling than I am/life is in this moment. Is that true though? Hard to say, maybe. But so far, everything has disappointed or just been moved on from eventually. Fulfillment seems to be largely a matter of perspective. I could, for instance, deeply appreciate what I have right now and feel utterly fulfilled to be writing this in my comfortable bed in my warm room with a full stomach and a full head of hair. Or I could feel unfulfilled because my thoughts are implying that I'm not doing enough and things aren't perfect enough compared to the idealized images flashing across the mind. It's tough to reconcile though. I find myself occilating pretty often. "I can be better!", "ah fuck it", "I can do more!", "eh what a hassle that would be".

Wanting more can be dangerous, because it makes you susceptible to getting bamboozled by other deluded egos. You hook into each others fantasies and fuel each others sense of insufficientness, each striving to be something you aren't or have something you don't. If you're okay as you are, no one can take you for a ride with them, no one can con you or press you to do or buy into anything, because you don't need what they're peddling or preaching. You have enough, you are enough, and you're fine. You don't need to be a millionaire, a celebrity, an influencer, a CEO, a saint, a bodhisattva, a god. You can just live as you are while others live as they are, whatever this all ultimately may be for.

And as far as I'm concerned, that's as valid a life as any other. Because nobody really knows anything for sure. Everything we know is tenuous, fragmented, uncertain, incomplete, momentary. I knew certain things at one point, knew them with so much certainty because I had experienced them myself, and then one day I was compelled to let it all go, like it never happened. Just like that, decided that I was going to let go of everything I experienced that once felt so real and important to me. Because that's all that can really be said about it - it felt so real and important at the time. But that doesn't make it so now.

This is a world of illusion - it's fundamental. Everything that's perceived is illusory in various senses. It's not what it appears to be. If it is possible to see beyond all the veils, it's not likely to happen before bodily dissolution. Following that, who knows? I don't, and I can't just take someone else's word for what's happening here. It's the great mystery. Which means I don't really know anything, and I can't assume that anyone else does just because they're eloquent and confident in their perceptions of the illusion. I've been confident in them too, and I can be eloquent, so I should know better than to trust in that by now. It's more than likely to be the shining of a well-cultivated ego.

I suppose I'm writing this because, for a moment, I fell for it again. I came across a shining ego and fell for pretty words. My ego felt unworthy in comparison, and bought into their story and the promise of fulfillment. But when I stepped back and looked at it again, or rather once the mind processed the situation further, I realized it was a bunch of unverifiable nonsense. It was just more of the same, only now in a different package. Just another delusional ego, seeking and striving according to accumulations of beliefs. Different from some of the more common delusions maybe, but beliefs all the same. Someone trying to get away from something in themselves and become more than they really are, in ways that resonated with my own efforts at the same.

I had a moment of weakness, probably because I was feeling lonely. That right there is an area of perceived lack that could lead to so much wasted time and energy, if someone comes along who seems like they could finally fill the void and alleviate the feeling of loneliness.

The truth is, no person can take away my loneliness. Loneliness is a feeling, and it comes and is sustained when I'm not being true to myself. That's why I can feel lonely even though I have plenty of people around who would gladly be with me. I can have so much love coming at me and still feel lonely. It's truly comical sometimes, I practically fight their love off with a stick. And it's partly because I don't trust that what they love is really me when I'm not really showing them all of me. If I'm still only showing bits and pieces while hiding the parts I'm ashamed, afraid, or just unaware of. Still acting and performing, even if less than before. Actually, one of the primary ways I've learned to act is to pretend to go along with peoples' illusions, and this is also one of the primary reasons I tend to avoid them. To get a break from their nonsense, and from my own nonsense that arises in relation to theirs. I also can't fully trust them when I can't fully trust myself, because then I'm still susceptible to being taken for a ride.

Until I can really drop the act, not necessarily with other people but first and foremost within myself, I'll feel lonely and be susceptible to others' delusions and projections. But the moment I do, loneliness and the remaining shreds of susceptibility will be gone. Because true expression and connection will finally be happening, not just a simulation of it, and nothing more will feel lacking. It's really just a matter of taking the risk to be true, to be real, in all my sometimes divine and sometimes devilish humanity. And to trust myself over others. Because almost everyone is trying to sell their own delusions to others, trying to involve others in their games for fulfillment, trying to fill their own perceived voids with other people, things and symbols.

I've been taking tai chi classes recently because I thought I'd enjoy it and it'd be good for me. But honestly, so far I've mostly found it draining. I'll be pushing through and nodding along to what the instructor is saying about chi and such while straining my sedentary limbs into the forms, trusting in the benefits being explained. But what's really happening? I'm standing in a room with other people while we move our bodies around. All the rest of it, I have no freaking clue. It's the same with yoga. All I know is that I'm moving my body around. I'm often not really enjoying doing it and don't really know that it's good for me or opening chakras and such - for all I know downward dog could be fucking up my wrists. Even after some months of daily yoga, all I could tell for sure was that I was standing straighter, I was getting better at doing the forms and it provided an opportunity to rest the mind and focus more on the body. Fairly basic stuff when examined honestly. The rest is unverifiable and more likely taking place in the imagination. Words and ideas being passed from mind to mind.

Most things are like that. It depends on what you want, or rather, what you believe yourself to be lacking and are therefore striving towards. If I'm talking to someone who experiences or believes in value that I'm unable to sincerely experience/verify and therefore connect with, all I'm really doing is fueling their egos through external consent/participation while fueling my own loneliness.

Honestly, in this moment, I'm feeling so done with all of it. I'm so tired of all the nonsense. I just want to chill and find ways to enjoy myself, if I can. That's actually proving somewhat difficult, since everything in the world seems to disappoint! But I'll keep on looking I suppose. What else is there to do?